SNL made a belated return on Saturday — the late night show’s first weekend since the WGA strike began in early May. Pete Davidson, who left the show in 2022, was back. So was Weekend Update. The mid-show segment missed a ton of news over the last many months, but luckily/unluckily there’s always fodder.
Co-host Colin Jost began by addressing, as Davidson did in his Cold Open monologue, the Israel-Hamas conflict, saying It was a “great week for random idiots who like to share completely unhinged thoughts” on social media or “wherever they can.”
Speaking of, Jost them moved on to Donald Trump, who earned scorn on both sides of the aisle (thought less so on one of them) after he called Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, “very smart.” But Jost thought he knew why he was praising a notorious terrorist group, postulating that “he thinks Hezbollah is the genie from Aladdin.”
Michael Che then praised Laphonza Butler for becoming the first openly gay Black female senator. He then joked, “‘Umm, you mean second,’ said George Santos.”
Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will were back in the news, thanks to the former’s press tour to promote her new memoir. Among her shocking revelations were that she and Will have been separated, though still married, since 2016.
Che couldn’t resist cracking, ““Ironically after he suggested that she should star in G.I. Jane 2.”
Jost and Che hadn’t done Weekend Update in nearly half a year, and their enthusiasm on being back was palpable. Indeed, they spent the bulk of the back half of their segment seeing how far they could push the envelope. You can see how far they went into the brink in the video below.